In the livestock industry animals are often housed in animal production facilities, also known as livestock confinement facilities, comprising massive climate-controlled buildings or feedlots housing tens or even hundreds of thousands of animals in close quarters. For these reasons, the livestock industry is highly susceptible to pathogen intrusion which may result in infectious diseases, increased costs for the livestock producer and, in severe cases, even death of the animal. Two segments of the livestock industry are at a higher risk of pathogen intrusion, in particular, poultry and swine producers. Poultry producers can be further defined to include egg laying facilities, chicken broilers and turkey growers. Swine producers typically include farrowing, nursery and finishing operations. In the United States alone, livestock confinement facilities comprise around 270,000 individual buildings that need biosecurity protection from unauthorized entries that may transmit harmful pathogens.
While livestock producers have taken steps to mitigate pathogen transmission (e.g., air filtering, domestic bird populations, on-site dead mulching facilities, etc.), there is one glaring exception: the people entering their animal production facility. Personnel, visitors and repair contractors routinely enter animal production facilities and therefore present a major pathogen vector that is largely unregulated throughout the livestock industry. Such individuals that enter an animal production facility are simply banned from entering other off-site animal production facilities for a certain time period in order to prevent the transmission of pathogens, and often rely on the individual's integrity and memory for compliance. Moreover, the length of time of this ban is arbitrarily decided by the livestock producer based on their particular health concerns and is thus inconsistent throughout the livestock industry.
Presently, the most common form of biosecurity in the livestock industry comprises a paper log kept at the front desk of an animal production facility. The paper log records a date of last known animal contact and location for each individual entering the animal production facility. This rudimentary approach lends itself to inaccuracies that frequently end in breached biosecurity protocols. For example, paper logs can be easily adulterated, do not account for memory lapses and require a costly, in-person attendant to monitor the entrance of each animal production facility at all times. More advanced forms of biosecurity that currently exist in the livestock industry comprise proprietary identification systems that require an identification card for admission into a livestock confinement facility. However, proprietary identification systems developed for one particular livestock producer at their livestock confinement facility may be inoperable or nonexistent at another producer's facility. Consequently such proprietary identification systems provide little or no value for identifying potential breaches from individuals coming from outside the system. Thus, there is a need for a livestock biosecurity system and method of use that is accurate, cost-efficient and uniform across the livestock industry.